Month: June 2014

The expression “Go and play in the traffic, kid” takes on an added dimension at the Stung Meanchey garbage dump in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The road is the only place the kids have to gather. The scrap wood and tin shacks are virtually built on top of each other; there is no such thing as a back yard. Any open space is at least ankle deep in garbage.

Down in the Dumps thought a playground for the kids was a very worthwhile project and provided the necessary $300 funding. “Vichika will get the parents to help,” commented Nick, “they can clean up the area and level the ground. It is good because the playground is for their kids.” The materials were locally sourced and people from the dump hired to bring in the sand.

Nick found a swing for $250.

It is big and sturdy and takes up most of the space so there isn’t any room to play soccer and such. “But that is okay,” said Nick, “because they would hit the kids on the swing with the ball.”

The swing was delivered. “Sometimes there are 35 kids waiting to use it,” noted Vichika, who runs her breakfast business next to it. “It is non-stop from morning until late at night. And sometimes there are fights as the kids don’t want to take turns. Some of them don’t eat lunch because they would lose their place.”

Even though it was a rainy and windy Sunday afternoon when we visited, there wasn’t a spare swing seat in sight.

DITD is pleased to have been able to bring such joy to deserving kids who truly appreciate having a play ground with a swing, rudimentary though it may be.

Another update is that someone gave Sanna a toilet – the squat porcelain kind – but she needed someone to dig the hole to install it. Jeff and Wayne – visiting from Sydney donated $25.The hole was dug and the concrete is in place so DITDs will gave her the other $25 to finish off the bathroom. The dump is going up-market.

Deanne and Neil & Emma donated some cash, so the balance is now $1,172.52.

Mariam scored a job as the editor of the Khmer Times – www.khmertimeskh.com – an English newspaper that started on-line about four months ago and morphed into a weekly print edition. She had booked a three week ticky-tour around Europe with her mother forever ago, but she needed somebody to cover off for her while she was gone. Oh, and could I start on Monday April 28, three days later?

What do I know about running a newspaper? Nothing. What do I know about Cambodian politics? Even less. Okay, but for five weeks I can handle anything or so – being my usual pretentious self – I thought.

By the second day I was ready to quit and the only reason I didn’t was because I don’t renege on my promises. I marked the 36 days in my diary, sort of like a count-down to Christmas. The first print edition came out five days after I started work and it was bedlam.

Except for one, the journalists were functionally illiterate. The first edition wasn’t finished until 23:30 on Thursday night and it had to be to the printer by midnight. Earlier in the week I’d thrown a hissy-fit and said we needed to hire copywriters as I wasn’t about to spend my waking hours translating the gibberish the cub-reporters handed in. That fell into place. But I still had to work weekends to co-ordinate with the copywriter to make sure the writers filed their pieces.

Once Mariam left on May 13^th, Dr. Bitch took over and started to whip things into shape. We got more writers, a routine started to develop, the work culture evolved. I went into the office every morning at 08:30. Too much noise and too many people and too many distractions; writing an email was a challenge. Then I spent the afternoon writing articles and editorials from home.

In four weeks I worked 252.5 hours. I have corporate-whore friends who work 60 to 65 hours a week, but they are on 250K to 300K a year. That is a substantial salary difference, but this is the Kingdom.

On Monday May 26 I had a meeting with Mohan, the publisher. The first item on my agenda was “When Mariam returns, I’m gone. I won’t leave you in the lurch, but I want you to know well in advance.” I really enjoy working with Mohan and have learned a lot from him. We are both workaholics and control freaks, although compared with him, I’m in the junior league. We had a long off-the-record discussion and came to an agreement that I would stay on and report directly to him.

All of a sudden the burden was lifted. It ceased to be a “real” job. As long as I get the work done he doesn’t care where or when I do it. I can live with that. And now that Mariam is back, my responsibilities don’t include chasing people around to find out what they are working – or not working – on. I never did babysitting well. And I have even less tolerance for dumb.

I write the “Women with Clout” section – that features everyone from royalty to radicals – http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/1365/women-with-clout–dr–mu-sochua/ — to Vichika at the dump http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/1649/women-with-clout-lay-vichika/ – which is fun.

And I do human interest pieces. The Orphanage Business – http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/1659/the-orphanage-business/ – ran on the front page and made a number of NGOs rather unhappy with me. Ah yes, but I’ve always said you can judge a woman by the quality of her enemies.

This week it was drug mules – http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/1947/the-human-mule/  – for the feature and an editorial about Yoshe, a naive Australian woman who got mixed up with a Nigerian. She agreed to take a backpack of arts and crafts supplies to Australia where someone in the sister-store in Sydney would pick it up. Scam at 10 paces. There were 2.2 kg of heroin sewn into the straps of the backpack and she was sentenced to 23 years in prison last week. I had visited her a few times in October 2013 and taken notes so writing the piece was easy.

All of a sudden I’m having fun with it. So what happens next? Will the new arrangements work out? Mohan wants me to grow up to be the weekend editor. All will be revealed in subsequent blogs.